Hike from Wasserauen to Aescher Restaurant

On our sabbaticals, one of the most enjoyable activities I have developed while Miles is working is to find local university students or staff who want to practice English.  The secretary in Miles' dept. at ETH was nice enough to send out a notice "advertising" free English conversation practice with a professional teacher (me).  So far, I have 4 students and I have a wonderful time meeting them and they enjoy speaking English.  (More about this another time).

One student, Sandra, suggested a day hike/lunch in mountain restaurant and, WOW, was it special!  We would have never heard about this without Sandra's suggestion.  And making it even nicer, our son Daniel and his partner Sefi were visiting and joined us on this incredible day.

The four of us took the 2-hour train trip from Zurich to Wasserauen, a small town in the Appenzell Canton, east of Zurich.  This area is known as the "most hilly" area of Switzerland.  The craggy alpine scenery is very abrupt and there are rock formations more than 2500 meters high that rise up from the deep, steep-sided valleys which cut through the region.

 
 Miles, me, Daniel and Sefi at the start of our hike

Gonna hike up that mountain!

Pasture land and distant mountains

Lots of grazing cows

Hang glider over the cliffs

Beautiful views from the trail

 

 
Daniel and Sefi dwarfed by the rock cliff near the end of the hike

Swiss flag indicating the top of the trail

Finally, after about 2 hours, we reached our destination, the Ascher mountain restaurant.  It clings to the foot of a vertical 100 meter cliff face.  Amazing!  Oh, by the way, you don't HAVE to hike up like we did.  There is also a gondola.

Ascher restaurant (how did they build this place way up here???)

Lunch time!

We had a very delicious lunch of rosti (and beer).  This is a typical dish of Switzerland:  pan-fried shredded potatoes (like hash browns/latkes) with optional melted cheese and/or a fried egg on top.  Wonderful!

Rosti with cheese and egg (according to Sandra the BEST in Switzerland) 
and an Appenzell cheese plate

 
For dessert, custard pear cake with four spoons

After a relaxing couple of hours, we had to leave.  A steep and pleasant hike back down the trail.


Typical mountain house: perfectly stacked firewood, perfect flower boxes

 Everything so neat and symmetrical

 
We passed through the little town of Schwende on our way back to the train

Another perfect day!

Comments

  1. Miri and LarrySeptember 18, 2017 at 5:52 PM

    Perfect day indeed! After all that hiking, you were definitely rewarded with a tasty and bountiful meal, as well as the view. OOH...that dessert looks yummy as well. Those students that have you, Laurie, are so lucky.

    ReplyDelete

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